Humanism, Secularism, Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 35 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

EVENTS

Obama should end National Day of Prayer. God & government are a dangerous mix.

”You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, I think he’s a good actor. Ok. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn’t fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that god was having trouble with. For years I asked god to do something about my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that cock-sucker out with one visit. ” — George Carlin

The USA has a bizarre thing called National Day of Prayer. It is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress. Each year, the president signs a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day. Its constitutionality is being challenged in court by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging President Obama to protect freedom of conscience by ending the unconstitutional National Day of Prayer. The Foundation needs 25,000 signatures before May 31.

Please sign ‘We the People’ petition. ‘We the People’ is set up by the White House to offer the public a way to petition the President.

End the unconstitutional National Day of Prayer, which violates the 1st Amendment. God and government are a dangerous mix.

Congress, in 1952, abridged freedom of conscience when, at the instigation of Rev. Billy Graham, it designated a National Day of Prayer, ordering the President to proclaim “a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.”

The U.S. President has neither the moral nor the constitutional authority to dictate to Americans to pray, much less to tell citizens what to pray about or set aside an entire day for prayer.

Whether to pray, or believe in a god who answers prayer, is an intensely precious, personal decision protected under our First Amendment as a paramount matter of conscience.

Don’t let Christian evangelicals hijack our secular Constitution.

A globalized stupidity. It’s called ‘World Day of Prayer’. The sad thing is, it is organized by women. Prayers are contagious. There is a Global Day of Prayer too. They have funny prayer alert. If the USA continues to celebrate National Day of Prayer, many countries will be influenced by the USA and will start celebrating prayer day by violating constitution.

Many countries mix gods and governments. But the separation of religion and state is urgently necessary. We do not need god’s inhuman, barbaric, unethical laws. We do not want anyone to say that god created some people rich and some people poor, to justify the gap between rich and poor. We do not want anyone to justify women’s oppression by saying men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other.

I respect Jessica Ahlquist for her fight to get a prayer banner removed from her school. We need more Jessica. We need organizations like Freedom From Religion Foundation in every country. We need to fight ignorance. We need to secularize the world. No sane person wants a National Day of Superstition.

Comments

Actually, if we could have a National Day of Superstition, just make sure it’s on the same date as the National Day of Prayer, I’d be happy with that for the time being. Nothing like having absurdity flagged up for raising people’s consciousness after all.

This. The site is more like “petition to have your issue casually dismissed by a real White House staffer,” but I signed anyway. The government should not be telling me when to pray, even if it’s just a suggestion. The government, by its own rules, should not have any opinion at all about praying.

I don’t have much hope that the petition will have a real effect on its recipients. But social protest isn’t really about the authority figures anyway. I think when people sign a petition like this, they come to think a little more about the issue, to have a clearer opinion, to align themselves more firmly with what they think is right. That’s always worth something. And all the people they talk to will get exposed to this position, even just a little bit, and it will become part of society’s discourse. That’s worth something, too.

Politics do evolve, but that’s not because the politicians change. It’s because the people grow and learn, and the politicians get replaced.

They’ll throw the petition into the waste-paper basket. But they will remember that thousands of rational and secular people do not want National Day of Prayer and they make sense.
Politics evolve. Politicians too. We have seen how die-hard communists have become more liberal.

Pres Obama does not mention God because he wants your vote, that should be enough for you. I have a feeling that you live in a low crime Jewish or Christian neighborhood, enjoying the civil people and would like to enjoy more of this; it’s going down hill from the people who have left God.

Why are you so against this one day? SO you don’t believe in some higher being, unlike 5.7billion others in the world (http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/greatc.html) or since you would be more focused on America how about the other 182million others out of 228million who believe in a God(http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0075.pdf). It’s not saying that we we only have one day of pray, do you really want the government to procliam prayer and what not everyday? I wouldnt mind that, but obviously you guys don’t want to here, so it’s keeping your say in freedom, why not let us have our own little day of being able to acknowledge a God on the same day with the rest of the country? I mean hey it is only one little day out of 365. Why won’t you let us have our freedom in doing so? Especially since most other times we cant speak our own beliefs because we might upset someone like you doing so, even though you guys splash your own beliefs or freedom right across our faces which then offends us, like swearing, drunkeness, indecent photos (which is everywhere these days)etc. You guys believe you are full of reason and logic but really?.
Also who said that goverernment and prayer don’t mix? Ever heard of George Washington,J.F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln,(and im also gonna throw in) Albert Einstein? These people have all quoted that they believe in some sort of a higher being or biblical instruction.
You guys are all pathetic and self-centred, seriously grow up, if you don’t want to be apart of the day then don’t be, go do something else, let us reliuos people be us for a day.

Actually, you are also violating the first amendment with this article to ban the freedom to exercise faith or the freedom to assemble:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You are so lucky you have a Government that allows you to have a freedom of speech and Religion whatever that looks like. So if you don’t want to wind up banning freedom of speech and thought, stop and think before you ask for the government to secularize your country. There are places in the world who torture and kill folks for not believing what the government does, so it is important for us to not be so hateful if we are going to avoid becoming that ourselves.

Also, I would like to challenge you on this: “We do not need god’s inhuman, barbaric, unethical laws.” How informed are you on these laws? I think you need to do more homework, because what you have written here as examples is not the expression of someone who is aware of what is actually said in Christianity, but of common impression of someone who has not done their research. I’m not saying you have to believe anything, but I would appreciate you to post intelligently informed information when it comes to important matters such as slandering someone else’s faith. It gives those who do believe in prayer and Christianity a bad name, and that is incredibly disrespectful. So take your own advice, and listen to your first amendment to allow others to freely exercise their rights to religious beliefs, and do your research before you go slandering them for something that isn’t accurate.

To the Author of this site,
I am rather concerned at the lack of knowledge shown on this site about the sep of church and state and its roots. If you want others to take you seriously, try learning a subject before speaking on it. Sep of Church and state was put in place to protect the church from the big bad gov, not the other way around. I know this doesn’t fit the “truths” you attempt to push but, facts are facts.